


and the time is passing

by ElDiablito_SF



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drunken Flirting, F/F, First Time, Implied Sexual Content, Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 06:11:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15261141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: Eleanor finds companionship from a surprising place on the night before Flint sails to Charles Town.





	and the time is passing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for BS Rarepair Week: Femslash Friday!

Eleanor’s hands shook as she poured herself a drink. There were still many hours left before sunrise, many hours before the _Walrus_ would sail towards Charles Town, carrying away their hope for Nassau’s future. This wasn’t how she had originally thought of securing it. Eleanor raised the cup and let the warmth of the rum slide down her gullet. Liquid courage, they called it. She could have probably used it down there in the tunnels as she faced down Vane.

_Vane._

She had chosen and there was no going back. Her affection for him needed to be sacrificed on the altar of independence. She couldn’t allow herself to think of what it would cost him. Vane had always been a big boy, who’d proven over and over that he could take care of himself, even if it cost others their lives and livelihoods. In the battle for legitimacy, she had to shut that metal gate against him, against whatever doubts may have lingered in her heart.

In return, her father had put his arm around her and made her feel worthy. It was a small gesture, one that had cost him nothing. Eleanor tried not to feel bitter that he had seldom made it before, if ever.

“Drinking alone?”

“My father has left for the Underhill plantation,” she replied with a smile, her back still turned towards her unexpected visitor. “I heard you will be spending the night in town?” She had taken another cup from the bar and filled it with rum as well, holding it out as she faced the woman standing next to her.

Miranda Barlow, or, as Eleanor now knew her to be, Miranda Hamilton took the proffered drink with a barely perceptible bow of the head and a cryptic smile upon her lips. _Unremarkable_ was certainly not the right word for her, Eleanor mused.

“You have truly surprised me in the last few days,” Miranda said, treating Eleanor to a searching look as she twisted the cup in her hands without bringing it to her lips. “I find it most unfortunate that James… that Captain Flint has kept you hidden away from me all these years. I feel that you and I may have yet been friends.”

“I believe it is you who has been secreted away, Lady Hamilton. I have been right here, running this shitshow of a town the entire time.”

Miranda’s smile spread and he she lifted the cup to her lips, taking a long sip of the liquor.

“You needn’t worry, it’s the good shit,” Eleanor said, gesturing with her own cup. “Only the finest for my friend Flint’s special friend.”

“With so much to bear up under, I’m surprised to find you alone this night,” Miranda said. “You have shouldered such responsibility. You have taken such a risk.” Her eyes moved towards the window behind Eleanor, where she supposed the fort might be looming in the distance. “You are very brave, Eleanor Guthrie. I can see why he had chosen you as his partner.”

Her hair, which on the previous occasions Eleanor had seen Mrs. Barlow had been drawn into a tight and severe updo, now fell in loose tendrils around her face and lay in a lopsided tail over one of her shoulders, as if she’d been preparing for bed. It was, Eleanor remarked, a startlingly becoming look on her, which made her seem a woman half her age. Not that Eleanor knew her exact age, but had surmised she was at least old enough to be a mother to that child she’d stolen from Vane’s dungeon. She had a sudden urge to brush those tendrils out of her eyes, perhaps to loosen her corset. To take her by the hand and lead her upstairs.

Eleanor shook loose such thoughts. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to touch another woman, not since… _Max_. Oh god, it still made her sick to her stomach to think of it. She had betrayed everyone she loved for this. For Nassau.

“This better work,” Eleanor said as she refilled her own cup. “I’ve given up more than you know to win Nassau this promise of legitimacy and independence.”

“I imagine,” Miranda said with a serious look, “that what you want for Nassau you ultimately want for yourself. It isn’t any easier being a woman on Nassau than it was in London.”

“But I don’t have to wear corsets here,” Eleanor pointed out as her eyes once again fell to Miranda’s cinched waist and shockingly appealing cleavage. Flint was a lucky bastard, is what. She didn’t know what he was so pissed off about at all hours of the day. “If I had a woman like you at home, I’d never leave the house, not to mention taking up piracy.”

_Oh._ Had she just said this outloud?

“Would it shock you to hear you’re not the first person to express such a sentiment to me?” Miranda asked. Her eyes shone in the candlelight with a playful fire, and she placed her drink back on the counter, as if she was afraid to spill it from laughter.

“I would imagine I’m the first of the female species,” Eleanor said with a shrug to cover up her own nervousness. Mrs. Barlow made her feel like a schoolgirl again, caught with her mate behind the haystack in the barn.

“Miss Guthrie,” Miranda took a step closer, “you may not have picked up on this from our few interactions, but I assure you - I am not actually a Puritan.”

Eleanor smiled, taking in Miranda’s heat as she invaded her personal space. She’d always had a weakness for brunettes, and Miranda’s hair looked particularly lush, her neck long and stately, and Eleanor couldn’t help but imagine it covered in bruises that she might leave there with her own mouth.

“No?” she uttered with a dry throat. Perhaps she needed more rum. She was usually a lot more eloquent than this.

“My late husband and I were known in London society as a bit of libertines, really.”

“And here I thought Flint had found the last honest woman in Nassau.”

“I said libertines, Miss Guthrie, I never said dishonest.”

“So, what I’m gleaning from this conversation is that perhaps I’m not the first woman to come onto you then, Lady Hamilton.”

“Miranda.” Her grin was feral. Eleanor wanted to bite it off her face and keep biting lower. She wanted to press her face into that cleavage and inhale all that bravado and merge with it permanently, lost in her scent.

“Miranda,” Eleanor licked her lips.

“Nor would it be the first of such proposals that I have accepted.” Miranda reached across and pulled the cup out of Eleanor’s hands, placing it aside. “On a night like this, it would be a pity to spend it alone. And especially after everything you’ve done. You deserve a reward, don’t you think?”

“Are you some kind of devil manifesting out of my own head to tempt me unto rash and unwise decisions?” Eleanor attempted to make levity while her own treacherous heart beat like a wardrum inside her ribcage.

“I’m sure Pastor Lambrick would agree with you,” Miranda replied with another wide grin.

“Flint is my friend,” Eleanor said with whatever was left of her resolve. “I find it would be particularly imprudent of me to take his lady love to bed. Even if she proved to be a willing companion there.”

“Flint is my friend, too,” Miranda said with a deepening frown. “I hope you do not think this is something I would do against his disapproval. I love James very much, I hope you know that by now.”

“Well, you did come and get me when it looked like Vane might actually kill him.”

“The sight of you with that rifle was most…,” Miranda licked her lips, her eyes traveled down Eleanor’s neck and sent little explosions down her spine. “Inspirational,” she finished. “Made me regret not becoming more of a pirate myself.”

“Is that why you sail with him tomorrow?”

“I have hidden away in the interior long enough. Whatever James is, he has become it because a part of me willed it so. It is my duty to see his journey through to the end, and to help him come out of this tunnel on the other side.”

“Unscathed?”

“None of us are unscathed here.”

Eleanor lifted her hand and brushed an errant curl out of Miranda’s eye. “You are a very corrupting influence, Mrs. Barlow,” she whispered, letting her fingers linger against the soft skin of Miranda’s cheek. Her eyes were a deep brown, like two ripe cherries suspended from the branches of her brows.

“What if you stayed?” Eleanor asked.

“I couldn’t,” Miranda drew a bit back. Eleanor only noticed her hands had been resting on her belt when they were suddenly no longer there. Her keys let out a sad, betrayed rattle.

“You said yourself, if only we had known each other better…”

“If only…”

“It isn’t so foolish to want a woman like yourself by my side. And unlike Flint, I would keep you with me always.”

“You would betray me first chance you got, Eleanor, do not pretend you would let your passions sway you in the face of reaching your goals.”

“Not if our goals were aligned.”

“You are a beautiful, charming girl,” Miranda said, her hands suddenly squeezing Eleanor’s arms.

“Don’t patronize me,” it was Eleanor who had drawn back that time. “Not you. Not after everything I’ve given up to help you and Flint make your dream a reality.”

“And your dream?”

“Perhaps that is all any of this will ever be - a dream dreamt by a drunken fool!” Eleanor turned away. The room was suddenly too warm and she had need of the night air.

“Eleanor.” Then softer, a whisper. “Eleanor?”

Her temples were pounding now. Being so close to this woman, yet somehow so far, was driving Eleanor insane. She was everything Eleanor might have wanted to be, had her mother lived, perhaps. But now, everything about her represented a life made up for someone else. She was once powerful, rich, beautiful - but life had cast her in this new guise and put her into Eleanor’s path. For what? So that she could get on that ship in the morning and disappear into the mist?

“Stay with me,” Eleanor said, turning towards Miranda again, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. “You don’t know me, but I promise, I am worth staying for.”

“I _know_ you are,” Miranda whispered, her body warm and pliant against Eleanor’s as she pressed closer. Close enough to kiss. So Eleanor did, capturing her lips with bruising force, chasing the promise of the untenable upon her lips.

Later that night, as they lay tangled in each other underneath the wide-open window, Miranda’s taste imprinted upon Eleanor’s lips, her ribs criss-crossed in the trails of Miranda’s nails, Eleanor thought of that treasure, abandoned on the beach somewhere in Florida, its shine so luminous, so disastrous at once. Another dream to be chased and to die for.

“Where are you?” Miranda’s voice cooed next to her ear.

“I think I’m home,” Eleanor replied. “Who knows where I shall be tomorrow.”

Miranda’s hand brushed gently over Eleanor’s breast, her lips pressed hotly against Eleanor’s neck. “Beautiful girl,” she whispered. “If I stay here with you, will you teach me to shoot a rifle?”

“All right,” Eleanor agreed, nuzzling closer into Miranda’s arms. “And what will you teach me?”

“I will teach you that it’s possible to love someone without losing yourself,” Miranda promised.

Outside the window a whistle could be heard. Someone was already shouting at someone else for being a profligate dotard. A dog barked and the tropical birds began their incessant alarm.

“It’s morning,” Eleanor said with a yawn. “I scarcely closed my eyes.”

Miranda’s lips closed across hers in a warm and welcoming caress. “Sleep, my darling,” she whispered. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

Eleanor had her doubts. After all, doubts were what had gotten her through life so far with no small amount of success. But she had already taken one leap of faith the night before, what was another? Besides, her body was far too exhausted to fight against the onslaught of sleep. It was a new day, and she would face it like she had faced the myriad of others. Even if she had to face it alone.

~~~

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from the “Midnight Poem” by Sappho:
> 
> _The moon and the Pleiades have set,_  
>     
>  _it is midnight,_
> 
> _and the time is passing,_
> 
> _but I sleep alone._
> 
>  
> 
> There's a Black Sails style version of this ending where Miranda comes back and doesn't sail to Charles Town with Flint. You're welcome.


End file.
